TATTON Park’s head gardener is celebrating silver success at the RHS Show at Tatton Park for a garden inspired by a classic children’s book.

The park’s garden team entry drew on the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, which has sold 50 million copies worldwide and is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

The team created a colourful back to back suburban fruit garden to highlight the global decline of invertebrate life, and it drew large crowds.

It was inspired by the colours, shapes and forms from the world-famous book, and plants such as kales, cabbages and buddlia were planted for butterflies, caterpillars and bees.

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Head gardener Simon Tetlow said: “We are delighted to have won a Silver Medal for our garden, which has been created thanks to the hard work and dedication of Tatton’s gardeners and volunteers.

“The garden is inspired by the 50th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar book, and has been designed to be insect-friendly and to demonstrate how simple changes can help slow down the decline of invertebrate populations.

“The book is all about introducing a young audience to life cycles and ideas of change and all those things which are vital to preserving invertebrates.”

The garden promotes open, accessible places for invertebrates in gardens, and includes clay drainage pipes and logs created from a 330-year-old beech tree which came down in the park gardens last year.

The logs provide vital habitat for bugs and beetles, said Simon, who had fond memories of reading Eric Carle’s timeless tale to his children.

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He said: “The book is about transformational change and offers a strong but subtle message about celebrating invertebrate life.”

He was pleased with the medal success, but for him the important thing was what the public thought of the garden and how it could inspire.

He said: “I would like people to think – what can I do at home, and how can that improve my garden as a wildlife garden and still look good as a garden?”